My Zumba instructor encouraged me to attend her Pilates/Yoga class today at 5:30. In the morning. I was only a couple of minutes late. I felt pretty good all day, had caprase or however you spell that for lunch. Supper was late for me at 8:30, due to having a bunch of kids with practices, homework and what-not. I had buttered noodles and two jerky sticks. As I type this, I am daydreaming about my favorite two guys, Ben & Jerry who are cooling their heels in my freezer.

I have lost around 8 pounds since my Dr mentioned I was at least 20 pounds over what I probably should weigh.

The class? I will try to go back, it is Tues & Thurs. My stomach muscles are killing me, which I can only take as a sign, since that is where the other 12 pounds need to come off. With my luck my boobs will go back to pre-four-baby size, and my stomach will stick out further than them. If only my feet would go back to pre-baby size.

I have determined the wine my neighbor gave me as a housewarming gift, a pedestrian white zin, goes quite well with sixth grade math. You see, it has been quiet today. Lydia lied. She came home from band to a note on her door to the effect of “see you tomorrow.”

Yesterday I asked her to help my first grader, Zach, with his homework. He had a math page and a worksheet to prepare for his first test ever, in science. He had been stressing about it on Thursday and wanted me to study with him then, although he did not know what it would be over. He had a sheet yesterday and I asked his sister to go over it with him to give me time to take my other son to the bike shop to get pegs on his bike and to tumbling class and make banana bread and tuna noodle casserole, then I could help her with her math homework and study the lymphatic and cardiovascular systems for her test, and check her sister’s math.

This morning I reminded Zach to take his homework to school. He started crying because Lydia had made him put the wrong answers on his worksheet about the five senses. He knew what was right but she convinced him he was wrong. By chance his teacher came by the library today so I asked about it. He had caught her before class in a panic and told her he was sure he had gotten one wrong because his sister made him answer it wrong. The teacher made it okay for him.

So Lydia is almost 12 and Zach is almost 7. We aren’t a family of pranksters-we have fun and tease and laugh, but we don’t do pranks. Everyone understands that we have to work as a team if we want to participate in extra-curricular activities, or else they can stay home and play all the time and I can do all the housework. I wish I had a husband. A husband, not my old one. I am planning to meet with the seemingly ineffectual school counselor tomorrow to see if he thinks this is sociopathic behavior or just naughty 6th grader behavior.

I drank a couple of glasses of wine and listened to hip-hop music with lots of cussing as I made supper. That helped. Then I called my boyfriend (if you can call a man of 63 a boyfriend). We talked. He asked if I prayed about it. I had, but mostly the “Help!” kind of prayer. He is a good pray-er. He prayed and made me cry. I feel somewhat better. Now I am eating chocolate chips and walnuts. That seems to help too. So, a little recap: booze, cussing, God and chocolate. Not necessarily in that order.

You know you are reading a big book when you can’t remember if you were on page 385 or 485, just that it was somewhere in the middle of the book. I just checked-814 pages, and it was 385. Better get going.

After years of living with my ex I developed a bullshit filter. Now that he is gone I still use it regularly. I listen politely to the story but I stick it in the filter until I get information that confirms it or discredits it. People lie about their age so they can get on the teen computers, they lie about what they had checked out, they lie about what they brought back…I don’t take it personally.

I am by nature a pretty straightforward person. My boss calls me blunt. I don’t lie worth a crap and I used to expect people to treat me the same way. Times have changed. (see above paragraph) I don’t do allegory very well although I usually understand it. Here is my non-allegory story.

Tonight my 11-year-old daughter lied to me about her homework. Then she lied to me several times while I was helping her check her homework. She had no reason to lie, she just told a whopper and sat back to see what I would do. It was like she opened her mouth and her father came out. She used the same obfuscating methods: changing the story then acting like I hadn’t understood the first time, acting offended when I asked for clarification, denial…she even had his facial expressions down.

After watching him lie to me, his mother, his brothers, his customers, his friends, his lawyer, himself, I am pretty good at spotting his lies. And it is really frustrating watching my daughter do the same darn thing!

I don’t want to go visit her at the women’s correctional facility, but I have no idea how to help her not turn into a sociopath. She has a counselor, and last time she went I asked the counselor to address the lying. My daughter came home with, “You need to spend more time with me.” Tonight I spent and hour and a half with her- dealing with her lies and checking her homework and dealing with more lies and trying to think out the best way to deal with her lies. I barely saw one of my sons. Even when she is not in trouble she finds ways to usurp my attention. What she needs is another parent to take some of the heat.

I finally settled on if she lies she goes to her room for the rest of the night. No matter what time it is. If I find out she lied earlier, she can go to bed right after school the next day. I can think of nothing else. She thrives on interactions with her siblings, and I am hoping that removing that activity will provide some time for me to parent them as well instead of letting them drift along in her wake.

Transvestite Rabbit’s post made me think about this. Obviously the behavior is the lie. The antecedent? I wasn’t upset, I was just checking over her homework. She apparently decided to see what my reaction would be to her dishonesty, and I fell for it. The consequence? My attention, I guess, and the understanding that she would be missing meals and human interaction if she keeps it up.

Taking a step back: my behavior? Falling into her trap of provoking me. The antecedent? Her provoking me? The consequence? My blowing my entire evening dealing with her? I guess I need to take my own advice and remember what I tell others… say, “I don’t have a dog in that fight,” and refuse to engage emotionally.

Was that allegorical? I didn’t plan to come to any enlightening conclusion until I finished the next to last paragraph. Thinking out loud I guess. Any ideas on better ways to not raise criminals? My ex’s sister who had a degree in counseling said he had traits of sociopathy and narcissism. He was a jewel. And now I am dealing with his protégée.